James Axler (3 page)

The sentry with the shotgun bragged loudly as he targeted the barrel at the fleeing Ryan, preparing a second shot from the homemade weapon. “Think we’ll just chill you and take your healer for our own, if it’s okay with you, One-Eye!” He laughed.

Ryan had already loosed his 9 mm SIG-Sauer P-226 blaster from its holster. Straight-armed, he reeled off a single shot. The sentry staggered back, dropping the shotgun as it exploded in his hand, taking the full force of the Sauer’s bullet.

Ryan targeted the second sentry, the one with the crossbow, but there was no need. J.B. had the man dead center in the sights of his mini-Uzi, Doc had his LeMat revolver aimed at the man, and Mildred and Jak had crouched around Krysty, poised with their own weapons—a ZKR 551 target revolver in Mildred’s right hand, a .357 Magnum Colt Python in Jak’s—to offer her necessary protection. Slowly, carefully, the younger sentry placed his crossbow on the ridge of the wall at his feet before raising his hands.

The sentry to the right, the one who had been holding the shotgun, cursed as he clutched at his bleeding right hand. But there was admiration in that curse as much as anger. “Black dust, but that is some good shooting, friend,” he pronounced incredulously.

“For a one-eye,” Ryan called back, keeping his blaster trained on the sentries, whipping it between the two.

The sentry laughed, the blood dripping from his hand where the homemade shotgun had been a few moments before. “Well, besides some dead-on shooting and a healer, you got anything worth my opening these gates for? Or should I go call me some reinforcements and see if we can’t negotiate with you some more?”

Ryan looked at him, never lowering his blaster as he spoke. “Reinforcements won’t be necessary,” he told the sentry. “Like I said, we’re not here looking for trouble.

Just a hole to sleep in for me and my people. We’re willing to pay for it, with ammo if you’ll take it. Or we can walk away right now, and you’ve learned a little lesson in trying to take what isn’t yours.” Ryan’s expression remained fixed as he watched the sentry.

The sentry smirked, nodding to himself. “You got ammo? Why didn’t you say so earlier, One-Eye?” he asked. “We got the best nuking dog fights here, if you’re a betting man, might even double or triple your wager if you bet as well as you shoot.”

Ryan nodded, warily lowering his blaster. After a moment J.B. and Doc followed his lead, carefully relaxing, but keeping their weapons in hand in case things turned nasty again. “Triple at least, I reckon,” he told the older sentry.

“Hell, yeah.” The sentry laughed. “Now, my boy here is gonna open the gates, and everybody is going to just play nice. Sound okay with you and your people, outlander?”

Ryan glanced across at J.B. and Doc to see if either would object. Then he answered by holstering his SIG-Sauer P-226. “You want my healer to look at that hand?” he asked as the younger man disappeared from sight.

The old sentry nodded. “I would be much obliged,” he agreed.

J.B. AND DOC CARRIED Krysty through the open gates and into the tiny ville. She seemed heavy, a felled doe from a hunting expedition, as her feet dragged on the sandy ground. Mildred had suggested it would be easier to carry her by shoulders and feet, as Ryan and J.B. had when they’d brought her here from the tower, but Doc wouldn’t hear of it. “Mayhap she cannot go in walking,” he had told them, “but she will at least go in looking like she can walk.”

J.B. agreed. Psychologically, it made sense to keep Krysty upright. That way she would appear hurt to the citizens of the ville and not dead.

The older sentry met them as they walked through the gates, his younger companion working the mechanism to open them—the gates worked on some kind of weighted cantilever system. J.B. made a mental note to examine it in more detail when the sun was higher in the sky. The old sentry had wrapped a makeshift bandage around his right hand, torn from the bottom of his checkered shirt. He smiled as he greeted Ryan and the companions.

“You sure gave my hand a walloping there,” he told Ryan. “That was some nuke-hot shooting you did.”

Ryan shrugged, not wanting to dwell on it, aware that the old sentry may yet be itching for payback.

 “My name’s Tom,” the sentry went on, before indicating his younger partner beside the gate. “And this is my boy, Davey.”

The younger sentry, Davey, brushed a hand through his hair and slowly eyed Mildred from the chest up.

“Pleased to meet you,” he finally said, oblivious to the others.

“Flattered,” she responded with a fixed grin.

Tom carried on, pointing down the single street of the walled-in ville. “This here is Fairburn. Don’t look like much, I guess, but we still call it home.”

“It looks very homely,” Ryan said. “I’m Ryan, and these are my traveling companions,” he said by way of introduction, not bothering with anyone else’s name. He would sooner they keep a low profile for now, at least as much as strangers in a walled ville could. “You said something about maybe having somewhere we could stay?”

Tom pointed to the center of the small ville, where the four twin-storied buildings stood. “There’s an eatery over there. Can’t miss it. Just follow your noses to the stink. Jemmy there will sort you out a room. Just ask at the counter.”

As the companions made their way down the dusty thoroughfare, two dogs rushed over, yapping and snarling playfully, their thick, saliva-smeared tongues hanging from their mouths. They were mongrels, stupid and friendly, their tails wagging as they looked at the well-armed strangers. Jak issued a low growl from deep within his throat, and he narrowed his pure red eyes as he looked at the mutts. As one, the dogs turned tail and ran, seeking more willing playmates.

Doc looked at the sentry’s bloodied hand as he passed, hefting Krysty. “I do not imagine you have much call for renting out rooms here.”

“Probably depends a little on who’s on the gate,”

Tom agreed.

“Come over when you’re ready,” Ryan called back, “and our healer will take a look at that hand.”

The companions headed into the center of the ville, with Krysty still lolling between Doc and J.B.

A huge chandelier hung from the ceiling of Jemmy’s by a thick, golden chain, its crystal droplets casting a flotilla of sunlight specks across the walls of the room where they rippled and bounced as if living things. The impressive chandelier was utterly incongruous, at odds with the simple, rustic design of the barnlike barroom.

Crude tables and chairs were scattered around the room, some simply upended wooden crates, seats ripped from old automobiles. A few men sat around, playing with stacks of dominoes or just jawing and drinking, mostly armed with remade revolvers, a couple of shotguns resting on the tables. Two women were propped at the bar, heavily made-up over expressions of utter disinterest. The wide room smelled of rotgut.

Doc and J.B. helped Krysty to the bar, which Ryan was leaning over, looking into the back room, trying to locate whoever was serving.

The two women propping up the bar looked at Ryan, then the older one—all of nineteen, perhaps—turned her head and shouted toward the back, her husky voice crackling like fire. “Jem, you got some new customers.”

A moment later a woman came out of the back room, taking in the companions in a quick sweep of her hazel eyes before turning a bright, flawless smile on Ryan.

She was dressed in a man’s shirt, too large for her, with sleeves rolled up past her elbows, her dark hair tied back. Ryan guessed that she was in her early thirties, skin tanned and hands calloused from a tough, outdoor life. She tossed aside the towel she had been wiping her hands with and asked what she could do for everyone.

“We’re looking to stop over in your fine ville,” Ryan told her. “Could do with rooms if you have them.”

“Here for the dogs?” the woman asked conversationally.

Ryan nodded. Behind him, J.B. had stepped away from the bar and was looking around the room, scanning for possible exits. Through the kitchen area behind the bar—where the woman had appeared from—he could see an open door leading to the backyard, the ground nothing more than sand. There was a well out there, really just a hole in the ground with a roped bucket beside it, framed by the open door. Off to the right of the bar, wooden stairs at the back of the room led up, and a second-floor balcony surrounded the room on three sides, with several doors leading off—most likely the lodging rooms for the establishment, transaction rooms for the two gaudy sluts working the bar. A door beneath the staircase proclaimed that it led to toilet facilities, though J.B. guessed it was probably nothing more than a fenced-in part of the backyard.

“You know how long you’re here for?” Jemmy asked Ryan as he placed a few rounds of spare ammo on the bar. The ammo was useless to the companions, none of it fitting their blasters, but spare ammo served as the gold standard for them .

Ryan looked around the room as though surveying the whole ville. “Nice place,” he said. “Who knows?

Mebbe a few nights. That be a problem for you?”

Jemmy was examining one of the bullets, turning it slowly in her hand to check for cracks or signs of tampering. “These new or reloads?” she asked him.

Ryan smiled, nodding. “Military issue,” he assured her. “Predark.”

“Two rooms, three nights,” Jemmy told him, looking at the others. “After that, you come find me and we re-negotiate. You’ll have to share beds, ’cause that’s all the rooms I got just now.”

Ryan dipped his head. “We are much obliged.”

Jemmy instructed one of the gaudies to watch the bar as she stepped from behind it and led Ryan and his companions to their rooms. Ryan took Krysty in his arms—armpits and knees—lifting her weight with ease as he followed the landlady up the creaking, wood staircase.

Jemmy’s glance drifted to Krysty’s Western boots with their elaborate Falcon wing designs up the sides, the silver toe caps smothered with dusty sand from the trek across the wastelands. “I like your friend’s boots,” she told Ryan as she led the way up the stairs. “If she’s got no more use for them, I might be able to find you rooms for a whole month by way of trade.”

Mildred held the woman’s gaze for a second. “She’s just tired,” she told her firmly, then immediately regret-ted snapping, fearing it might make the woman suspicious.

J.B. nodded to Doc, gesturing to the open front door, before following Ryan and Mildred.

Taking his cue, Doc held out a hand to Jak at the bottom of the stairs. “What say you and I get us some refreshment, lad?” he announced in a loud voice.

The trace of a smile crossed the albino youth’s pale lips. “Been long walk,” he said, nodding, then placed his back to the bar and watched the door while the teenage gaudy slut poured them two mugs of some locally brewed beer.

Doc was aware that the younger woman at the bar was watching him as he found a .22 round in his pocket for payment. “I trust this should be more than enough for our beverage, good lady, and I expect some local jack in compensation, as well.” She checked the ammo suspiciously, then handed him several coins. Beneath the heavy makeup, he would guess she was no more than seventeen.

“You like what you see?” she asked, puffing out her chest and tilting her head to offer a well-practiced, coquettish smile, her long brown hair falling across her face and bare shoulders.

Doc nodded, sipping at the brew. “I like the chandelier. It’s a nice touch.”

The gaudy’s expression dropped for a moment, as though unsure whether this old fool had understood her question.

Inwardly, Doc chuckled. It was desperately sad to see a girl this young forced into prostitution, and a part of him wished that things were different. But there was nothing he could do here; this was her life and the chances were slim to none that she would ever know any better.

“My friends call me Doc,” he told her after a moment. “What’s your name?”

“They call me Lois L’amore,” she said, smiling.

“That means ‘love,’ if you didn’t know,” she added.

Doc scratched his chin, as though deep in thought.

“I did not know that,” he told her. “How very unusual.”

 “Can I show you how I came by such an unusual name?” she asked him.

Doc looked her up and down, pity in his eyes. “Why don’t we just leave that to my imagination?” he suggested before turning away. He heard the girl huff a sigh through clenched teeth.

Sniggering at the performance, Jak led Doc to an empty table set against one of the wooden walls from which they could watch the main door, the bar and the entrance beneath the stairwell.

JEMMY CLOSED THE DOOR to the upstairs room and left the companions alone. The bedsprings groaned as Ryan carefully placed Krysty on the rusting double bed, and Mildred sat beside her, placing a hand on the sleeping woman’s forehead.

There were two doors in the room, one of which led to the second room that they had rented while the other led into a corridor that, in turn, led back to the balcony above the barroom.

J.B. poked his head through the door to the adjoining room, briefly giving it a once-over. It was much the same as the room where Mildred tended Krysty—a double bed, door to the corridor, a small basin sink that could be filled from the well as required, and a large window of sand-streaked glass. In the same spot over Krysty’s bed there was an old road map showing the streets of Fargo, North Dakota, heavy white lines running on verticals and horizontals where the map had once been folded for ease of reference.

J.B. walked to the far door, turned the key in the lock then tested it, pulling and turning the handle three times before returning to Ryan and Mildred.

The frame shook and spewed sawdust with each pull on the handle. “These locks won’t hold,” he warned them. “If a gnat gets caught short, it could piss both doors open.”

Mildred querulously looked up from the bed. “Are we expecting visitors?”

“Whether we expect them or not, won’t make much difference if they come,” J.B. insisted.

Mildred shook her head. “You’re being paranoid.

No one’s looking for us out here.”

“Paranoid’s last to die,” he reminded her, looking through the window across the main street of Fairburn.